


Encounter at Salem

by peternurphy



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, Obsidian Order, Pre-Canon, Warning for Internalized Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:25:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8945287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peternurphy/pseuds/peternurphy
Summary: Elim Garak's first encounter with the being known as Q.





	

There was something off about the ship.

Operative Elim Garak of the Obsidian Order moved through the halls without a set destination in mind – yet an operative of the Obsidian Order did not simply wander. Even though he’d spent near thirty hours on a simple preliminary reconnaissance, even though the bridge and the captain’s quarters somehow eluded him despite the numerous laps of the ship, even though the map on the Padd had had to be erased and redone for nearly every hall he turned into, Elim would maintain that he knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing.

As he turned down another empty, looping, corridor, he swallowed another stimulant and tapped to draw another connection. But this connection intersected directly through an engineering room that was supposed to be on the level below-

Irritated, Elim tapped erase on the engineering room and replaced it on its proper level. It had to be the lack of sleep – the six hours of briefings from Tain, who had treated it like it was Elim’s first ever solo mission, plus the twelve hour ride on the shuttle which Elim of course had had to supervise, the two hours to make it onto the USS Salem without having being detected. And of course, the 30 hours of trying to make sense of the labyrinthine cruiser that the original blueprints proved to be entirely insufficient for.

Or make that 31 hours. Elim wondered if it might be better just to let himself get caught. He’d lose the stealth aspect of the mission – to disappear a few high ranking science officers without the implication of Cardassia. Foul play would be suspected, but the next phase of the operation would be to toss around the red herrings that would get, say, the Romulans under Federation heat. Elim had volunteered for this part of the mission to stretch his legs. By that point, all he wanted was to find some poor ensign to cut up for information.

Elim reached a fork in the path. Fortunately, it was supposed to be there – it was notated in his Padd, with the left fork in red. According to the blueprints, the right one would be closer to the bridge. Perhaps the blueprints were an act of counter-intelligence, thought Elim, as he turned down the left path. 

His suspicions were confirmed. He reached the crew quarters, finally. With a hand on his disruptor in the case of a suddenly appearing crewman, and the list of five names open on his Padd, he began to scan the doors. If the blueprints were as egregiously wrong as they were, there was the possibility that the door numbers would be incorrect, too. 

But there would, at the very least, be the young, pretty ensign to cut up. Elim reached the door labeled 504 and ran the lockpick over the side of the hinge, waiting for the soft boop from the device. It booped; he opened the door and, thinking back to Mila the regnar, slid inside. 

The crewman was sitting at a desk and, rather quaintly, handwriting something. A note to a girl, perhaps. Elim ignored the twinge of bitterness as he raised the atom-thin blade to sever the specific nerve-

No crewman. He lowered the blade slowly as he turned around. The crewman had been sitting there, clear as day – couldn’t be a hallucination, for the stimulants Elim had taken. Despite the warnings, he put another between his teeth and crushed the foul tasting pill. Elim sat down in the chair and leaned against the desk as he tried to process how the crewman could simply not be there when the blade reached the spot, with no sign of recognition of the danger and no sign of hearing the operative behind him.

“Elim Garak, Obsidian Order. Code named Regnar, Operative 66-A43-F9-F6-9975-190I-C. Protege to Enabran Tain, called the Needle. A very dangerous man.”

Elim swiveled in the chair to see the crewman lying across the bed. He was a bit older than Elim had expected – the hairline thinned near the front and the lips were curved into a smile, unpainted but nonetheless forming a stark outline. The display of a nonchalant human was betrayed, however, by the eyes. When Elim looked indirectly at them, they were dark brown and unreflective. When he fixed his gaze directly into them-

He didn’t look directly into the man’s eyes.

“A very dangerous Cardassian man, who just tried to permanently paralyze a Federation officer. Very naughty, you could find yourself in a Section 31 prison for that,” the man continued. His voice was nasally and teasing.

“I don’t think you’re a Federation officer,” said Elim.

“Too dangerous to be a complete idiot. No, I’m no Federation officer. Believe me, if I had to wear this every moment of every day...” He gestured, with a sneer, to the uniform. Elim laughed in agreement. “You can call me Q.”

Elim thought back to a thin black isolinear rod in Tain’s office. That he had been shown once, after a horrific transporter accident that couldn’t be marked as foul play or negligence. The only explanation was that all known laws of the universe had been warped, slightly, in the half of a millisecond that the accident occurred in. Elim had recorded his testimony onto the rod, had been shown a few similar unexplained accidents. But he couldn’t precisely remember what about the man called Q evoked that rod at the back of a drawer. Or the phrase, “There’s a department that handles this.” Elim hadn’t pressed further.

“And there’s no need for me to introduce myself to you… Q.” 

“Of course. You don’t need to worry about how I got all the information, though. I’m not with any of your so-called intelligence agencies. I’m a free agent, so to speak.”

“Then what are you doing here?” Elim’s pointed the disruptor at him, and the man, Q, raises an eyebrow. “Either you’re infiltrating a Federation starship and impersonating an officer, or you’re blocking an operation of the Obsidian Order. Take your pick, but the consequences won’t be fun for you, I promise.”

“He’s got a gun! Say, Elim, does the weapon make you feel better when you think about all the men you’ve let penetrate you?”

Elim fired; Q raised a hand and held the pulse in midair between them. “I’m a far more dangerous man than you are, Needle. And I’m telling you to leave this ship.”

“Whatever you are, I have a job to do.”

“Not anymore.” The pulse moved through the air, slowly, back towards Elim. “Get off of the ship.”

“I’m not getting off of the ship until I have my targets with me.”

“Officers Mariana Carter, Demetra Haas, Gavril Wong, Badri Maessen, and Ali Rollins, yes. No, you’re going to get off the ship now. I was hoping my little maze trip would stop you, but you’re quite the persistent cardie, aren’t you?” Elim raised the disruptor at the slur, and Q rolled his eyes. “I meant it affectionately. But my point stands, that you need to leave. Hell, I’ll even take care of Tain for you.”

“It’s not about Tain,” said Elim. He tried to bite back the snarl. “It’s for Cardassia.” 

“For Cardassia!” Q repeated, with a raise of his fist. “Ah, nationalism. I don’t care.” He sat up, and pulled the disruptor pulse back to him. “How about this? Leave now, and say you got the wrong ship. And if you don’t, I’ll make you leave, and leave you at Tain’s mercy for failing the mission.”

“It’s not about Tain.”

“So you wouldn’t mind being thrown in the Box for a week, then assigned to file duty for what. A year, six months?” Elim raised the disruptor and fired six shots, that joined the pulse in front of Q’s hand. “I told you I’d take care of Tain if you agreed to leave. If you don’t do what I want, then I think I should make it unpleasant for you.”

Elim played out the options. Surely, this Q would have a weak point. “I don’t,” Q said as Elim thought this, and Elim tried and failed not to show surprise. “I’m functionally omnipotent. Oh, did I forget to mention that? How rude of me, I do apologize.”

Elim Garak was never a superstitious man. But all of the stories his adoptive father had told him in the more obscure areas of the house flooded his brain, of gods and faeries and spirits that roamed the universe. A god wouldn’t be so flippant, Elim thought – so he categorized Q under faerie. Something more dangerous than a god.

“Take care of Tain, and gather the info that I would have gathered myself had I taken the officers. Seeing as you’re a god, that shouldn’t be trouble.” Then something in Elim pushed him, and he continued. “And tell me why you want me to leave so much in the first place.”

Q sighed and snapped his fingers. “Check your Padd.”

Elim obeyed, and scrolled through the files. “How do I know that it’s real information?” He asked, as his brain began to process the list of numbers and diagrams.

“Because I say so. And because my motive for keeping you from your officers has nothing to do with the information itself. Just Haas and Wong. It’s nothing your reptilian brain would understand, but another continuum member and I have a bit of a bet going. One of them is going to… join us, so to speak, in the near future. I’d rather not have to take some excursion to a Cardassian prison and warp things around them when it could play out naturally.” Q smiled. “Is there anything else you’d like?”

Elim studied him. Considered the legends and folklore – considered his requests to Tain and how they’d been fulfilled. But then, this would be the only opportunity to ever meet a being of this stature-

“Tell me who wins the bet.”


End file.
